


Falling Apart Together

by XvoodooXXblueX



Category: Inception (2010)
Genre: M/M, Suicide, disturbing subject-matter
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-03-13
Updated: 2014-03-13
Packaged: 2018-01-15 14:57:14
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,333
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1309024
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/XvoodooXXblueX/pseuds/XvoodooXXblueX
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>KINK MEME FILL: Eames keeps cloning Arthur. Because Arthur keeps dying on him.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Falling Apart Together

“No, no, it’s a dream,” Eames yells and he’s stalking down the hospital’s corridor, fury written in his very pace.

“Eames, it’s not a dream,” Cobb tries, calmly but insistently as he hurries after Eames. They arrive at room 112 and Eames storms in, stops next to the bed where Arthur is lying, skin pale and sickly grey, the room where Ariadne is waiting with a tear-streaked face half-hidden in Yusuf’s jacket.

Eames slowly walks towards Arthur and lets a hand gently settle on the dead man’s cold cheek.

“No,” Eames whispers. “It’s a dream. Come on, darling, wake up.”

Arthur doesn’t wake up and Eames whirls to face Cobb.

“Damnit, Cobb, start the music. Start the damn music, you bastard.” Eames is frantic, now, his voice too high-pitched.

Cobb shakes his head sadly: “It’s not a dream, Eames.” Cobb sighs. “Take out your totem.”

For a moment Eames gives Cobb a completely incredulous look, but as the silence in the room reigns on and a doctor and nurses appear at the open door to see what the commotion was about, Eames’ glare falters and his hand hesitantly moves to his pocket. As his fingers touch upon the poker chip there and close around it, realisation hits like a lightning strike. Arthur is gone.

At that point, Eames gives a near inhuman snarl and he pushes past Cobb and the hospital staff and storms out the door.

A funeral is held for Arthur, two weeks later. Eames doesn’t make an appearance. No one sees him or hears from him for another three months.

Yusuf is the one to see Eames next. They’re both back in Mombasa and Eames tracks Yusuf down at a busy market, pulls Yusuf into an alley-way and slams him against the wall. Eames looks like hell, unshaven, unkempt and reeking of alcohol. His eyes look wild.

“Genetics. You know someone who can do it. You said so before,” Eames growls and Yusuf is slightly afraid, even though he’s not sure, yet, what Eames is talking about. But Eames soon tells him, and even though Yusuf thinks it’s a crazy idea, that the other man has truly lost his mind, Yusuf gives Eames an address. There, Eames would find a geneticist, specialising in human cloning.

*

The first clone dies on the operating table, half an hour after having been created. Eames is there for the entire ordeal and that night he sits, eyes glued to the dead clone’s face, hand wrapped around his.

The process repeats, life spans lengthen and the scientists are satisfied, but concerned their funding would dry up with time. Eames assures them that no such thing will happen. He’s a skilled con-man, after all. He can obtain money if he needs it.

It takes months; months in which Eames watches Arthur die over and over again, to create a viable clone. It only takes a fraction of this time for Eames to become as addicted to this process as he is to the bottle. Then, one morning that is no different than any other had been, Arthur is alive. He’s feral, barely human and they have to lock him up in a cage. He’s as likely to kill a person as any caged animal is, but Eames spends time with him and even though he nearly dies twice, he convinces himself that part of this creature is Arthur. This is only a stepping-stone on the way back to his Arthur.

The feral dies two weeks later.

The next few become more human, step by step, but their life-expectancy does not rise. By that time Yusuf has informed Cobb of what is going on and one day Cobb turns up, spends a day, and then another, watching Eames’ insanity and the atrocity of one replicated Arthur dying after the other.

Cobb is sickened, both at that inhumane process and at what has become of Eames, a single-minded, obsessed and addicted wraith. Eames just laughs at Cobb and lets him know that once he has his Arthur back, none of this would matter anymore. That it will have been worth it. Cobb leaves, then, and he does not see Eames again. He makes sure Ariadne doesn’t either.

Almost a year passes until the most significant breakthrough is achieved. Arthur is alive, he is human and he can speak. He is intelligent and able. He is utterly emotionally devoid. He does not understand love, he does not understand pain or obsession or compassion. He doesn’t know when to speak or when to shut up and he takes part in Eames’ drinking out of boredom. He treats himself as alien and Eames as an inferior being. And Eames is in awe and he is in love. Despite the atrocity in Arthur’s body he faces every day, Eames loves this being, does everything for him.

They get four months before the clone dies. Yusuf, upon hearing the news, practically puts Eames on suicide watch, but to his and everyone else’s surprise, Eames does not grieve for long. If anything, his obsession has intensified: Now he knows it can be done.

It takes another six months. Eames is a sick and crazy wreck. His liver is about to give up from the drink and his heart, due to the stress. His spirit only lives on for Arthur.

And Arthur he gets, with the next clone. He is human, witty, shows emotions, and speaks with Eames. They have to get to know each other, from scratch, and they do. Eames takes Arthur home, to England. They live at Eames’ estate near Cambridge which is surrounded by fields and passed by a stream. Eames takes Arthur to London for the sights and the galleries, to Blackpool for the seaside fun and to Brighton for the nightlife and gay clubs.

The day Arthur tells Eames that he loves him, Eames breaks down in Arthur’s arms and cries. As they make love, Eames tells Arthur that he’s sorry. Sorry for everything; sorry that he’s so broken. He tells Arthur about how they used to be, about Ariadne, Cobb and Yusuf. He tells Arthur about inception and Arthur is fascinated. He wants to learn. He wants to meet the others.

Eames just smiles sadly and promises that he’ll do what he can. Secretly, he does not plan to let any of these things happen.

In the end, in the true end of it all, that was a good idea. Arthur falls ill, and it is nothing but a common cold, but it takes a long time to get better. Eames eventually calls for help from the scientists that helped create Arthur.

The diagnosis is devastating: Arthur is dying, a cancer weakening his immune system day by day. They don’t have long; meagre months, maybe only a few weeks. Eames hears this in Arthur’s absence, before the other man even knows. It shatters Eames’ world; it shatters what is left of him. They’re in London at the time and even as Eames feels himself dying inside, watching the dreary clouds pass above the London Eye, he feels a strange sense of calm that soon turns into a resolve.

They return to Eames’ estate at the beginning of a summer that is promising to make days exceptionally warm and sunny. They go for walks along the stream as they used to, when Arthur feels up for it and they spend long days inside together when he doesn’t.

On one of their walks along the stream, they sit down by the bank, Arthur in Eames’ arms as they kiss. Between kisses, Eames tells Arthur that he loves him. He deepens the kiss, waiting for Arthur to lose himself in it as he always does.

Eames reaches to his side, even as his hand lovingly threads through Arthur’s hair. Eames raises the gun he’s been carrying to Arthur’s temple and pulls the trigger. Eames sets it to his own head even before the first shot has stopped echoing through the trees.


End file.
